


Lounge Covers of Bowie on Route 46

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, New Orleans, POV First Person, Road Trips, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5904712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten things Scully hates about herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lounge Covers of Bowie on Route 46

**Author's Note:**

> For Kate and Katie, my glitter girls.

The dark and terrible secret of my life is that I really enjoy being single. Sure, I whine about wanting to have a normal life from time to time, but that’s only after the blend of Mulder’s shoes, gas fumes, radio static, and highway hypnosis have given me a headache and a burning desire to be anywhere but in a motor vehicle. I’d much rather be in India exploring the Taj Mahal and debunking fakirs than in Indiana exploring the reason why men are genetically incapable of putting the toilet seat down and why beef is what’s for dinner.

But not wanting to be “normal” doesn’t exactly mean I adore my life. Actually, there are plenty of things about my life and myself that annoy the hell out of me. I know this is rather odd to be thinking just out of the blue, but what else am I supposed to do on the two and a half-hour drive between New Orleans and Lafayette? Listen to Mulder sing the entire oeuvre of David Bowie– again? Oh, hell no, especially not after that horrendous lounge cover of “Rebel Rebel” he did at the baggage claim. So why not think about my discontents, especially considering “China Girl” is blaring from the speakers? For my sanity’s sake, I pull out my Discman and headphones, ignoring Mulder’s significant gaze at me as he belts out, “I feel tragic like Marlon Brando, when I look at my China Girl–”

Oh, God. Tragic like Marlon Brando is a new low for Mulder, and I thought he couldn’t go any lower than that haircut. I pull out my Hole CD (yes, Hole, even if I was disappointed when Courtney Love cut her hair and went glam, the sellout) and wonder why I’m not happy.

I think that the big problem is self-control. I have far too much of it, stemming from the fact I’d rather die than make an ass of myself in public by being out of line. I do what I’m expected to do, and do it well, because that’s the way to approval, access, and everything good. Actually, the easy way to that is to be a loveable bad boy like Mulder the Lounge King over there, but that line is a hard one to toe, and much too dangerous for good ol’ Dana Scully.

For instance, after this case, I want to take a week’s vacation and stay in New Orleans. I have the time saved up, and I’ve never been there before. I want to do Bourbon Street, drink many hurricanes and daiquiris, eat a po-boy or whatever those gargantuan sandwiches are called, and visit Anne Rice’s house. However, I won’t, I know I won’t. By the time this case is over, I will have reminded myself that New Orleans is grimy, Bourbon Street is an overpriced tourist trap, and the humidity here is already unbearable, and it’s only April! I’ll make myself glad to return to my dusty little apartment and get back to work. Knowing that I know I’ll talk myself out of it only makes things worse. I wish I had the guts to get out of the damn car. But nooooo–

I wish I were braver, too. Why is it that I can glare down the entire FBI or run after scary monsters but I can’t find the wherewithal to tell my mother no, I don’t want to go to San Diego with her in July? I want to take a vacation abroad. I even got a passport after that ungodly Florida trip, and brochures for Ireland, Italy, and Greece. But I foresee myself talking about soap operas with Mom and Tara instead, being the good daughter, the good sister, the good aunt. Even if a miracle occurs and I go to Europe, I won’t have a good time. I’ll end up getting sunburned by psychosomatically forgetting the sunscreen and thus punish myself for being bad. This is depressing, but I’m not trying to be negative. I am simply telling the truth.

Next wish: to regain some of the lost damn wonder in life. This job, which I love (and oh yes, I do. It’s the second biggest secret in my life. I am as eager as my dolt partner Mulder is most of the time to race off into nowhere to see the lights in the sky. For totally different reasons, of course.) has left me extremely jaded. Sometimes I think the way is to grab some Annie Dillard, a backpack of supplies, and run off and hide in nature until I rediscover how constantly beautiful life is. This, however, will never happen. Nag as I might, try as I might to be innocent, spontaneous, and upbeat, life is too ugly to always consider it beautiful and wondrous. I am no Pollyanna. But appreciating the sunset and fresh roses would be nice.

“Oh, Ramona– if there was only something between us,” Mulder warbles off-key. If the Thin White Duke ever heard this crap, he’d kick Mulder’s ass to Britain and back. “Besides our clothes–”

Now there’s a thorny wish. Do I want to have hot, steamy, sordid sex with my partner? Okay, duh. If the end of the world were in thirty minutes, we’d be naked and I’d be coming hard even as the world exploded. Hell, I’d let Mulder sing Neil Diamond’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” over and over for the next four trips if I could just have one good, consequence-free fuck with him. Like Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson, and God forgive me, Keanu Reeves, Mulder is on my list of spongeworthy men.

However, the consequences are out there. It’s not a matter of professional conduct any more. My career’s been shot to hell just covering Mulder’s ass. It’s all about the personal, for which I have decided there are no good answers. I don’t know if I could deal with Mulder twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and as lovers and coworkers, we’d be spending almost that much time together. Besides, he and I are already nastily possessive. Add committed sex into that bargain and we’d pick a lot of fights over suggestive glances. So that’s a no. And I love Mulder too much, and respect our relationship too much to suggest something like being friends with benefits. In this case, inaction has proven the only viable course of action. Besides, all my surreptitious visits to sex shops for new vibrators have strengthened the economy.

Anyway, sex and love, or its utter lack, with Mulder reminds me of something. I never wanted to get married in the first place. I mean, my parents were wonderful role models and very happy. But never in a million years could I see myself there. I have periods where I feel intensely guilty about this and others where I think I’ve missed something. But I know all to well marriage and love are not a free ticket to happiness, especially not with the life I choose to lead. And in general, I’m fairly happy anyway. Life is just too short. To completely forget its miraculous nature would be disrespectful and wrong to God and myself. I may hate some parts of my life, and want to change, but whose life is so perfect they never change anything? Just last week, my mother told me on the phone that she’s sick of Helena Cassadine on General Hospital and she’s switching over to Days of Our Lives. See? Everything changes sooner or later.

This realization makes me smile out the window at the steamy subtropical swamp we’re driving over. I turn to Mulder, who is done with torturing David Bowie songs for now. I tap his shoulder lightly.

“Hey, Mulder?” I ask.

“Yeah? Do you need to stop?” he asks. “Go to the restroom?”

“No, not really,” I reply. “But I was thinking. I have a week’s vacation saved up, and I think I might stay on in New Orleans after the case is over– after all, I always wanted to see the tomb of Marie Laveau–”


End file.
